Artificial bee colony algorithm is a noval optimization method which is inspired by bee colony foraging behavior. Its use in the structure reliability field presents not only the advantage of its facility of implementation, but also the capability to obtain the design point and the failure probability with good accuracy. And by this method, the reliability index of nonlinear and complex limit state function which iteration scheme may fail to converge could be obtained with efficiency. It is demonstrated by four examples that the present method is reliable and accurate in reliability analysis of engineering structures.